


Hurt Vectors

by Levists (Aris)



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Eating Disorders, M/M, Modern AU, Self Harm, Yoga
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-26
Updated: 2014-03-26
Packaged: 2018-01-17 03:10:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1371712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aris/pseuds/Levists
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Flashes of red hair beneath his eyelids and dark shadows under his mothers baby blues in the morning, cans piled next to the bin and glass bottles laid to rest in a dusty wine rack.</p>
<p>Levi's OK.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hurt Vectors

Levi's yoga teacher tells him early on, maybe the third session, that beauty can only be born from pain. Mrs. Haden then proceeds to turn her body into unbelievable shapes and forms, twisting like a cat in a child's embrace. Levi couldn't force his feet to the floor, couldn't relax his back, and the girl next to him giggles, though is quickly hushed by her mother. It's a burning, straining sensation when he tries again and Mrs. Haden says he should start out with simple stretches. Levi wants to be like her, wants to tell a story with his body alone, wants that grace. He is dismissed like the child he is.

She sets him to the side of the ballet room they use for yoga every Wednesday evening, Friday morning and Sunday afternoon, and gives him a blue, padded mat. She tells him to do the butterfly, to calm himself down, and then move into a two leg forward bend, a one leg forward bend, the pigeon... Levi watches the girl his age with the ginger hair from his seated position on the matt, far from calm himself as she pulls her delicate body into the zenith of a blessedly smooth summer salutation, spine slipping through the back of her shirt.

Levi's own mother is to the side, and catches his eyes, smiling and winking, and it's all Levi can do to suppress the spike of envy that erupts from the simple exchange. It's so easy for them, to stretch into those positions. His body is awkward, out of his control and he lacks the discipline to force himself into smaller and smaller spaces. 

He screws his eyes shut, the mild pressure forcing him to concentrate as he draws his legs forward.

The burn begins.

###### 

It never really ends, that burn.

Yoga, his classmates tell him, is girly. So he doesn't mention it again, but follows his mother to every lesson, waking up on a usual groggy Friday to join her in deep stretches, pushing himself further and further. He enjoys it, the sweat, the pull, the satisfying ache afterwards. His mother affectionately swears by it as he goes to bed on time every night, worn and relaxed, wondering what the stress his mother claims exists is. 

He is a calm wave in a raging sea.

From primary school to secondary, and suddenly the dark shadows under his fathers eyes are all too real. Classmates complain about homework, about girls, about football and Levi - Levi cripples to the floor. He's tired, all of sudden, all too soon, and his stretches and shapes hurt like they didn't before, can't seem to block out that buzz. His new school doesn't like him, doesn't approve of him, and he's honestly not sure what's so appealing about football, and stares blank faced at a supply teacher who jokingly asks him what team he supports. Girls at the back giggle, boys mutter words they heard their brothers use.

Really, it's just easier to do homework in lunchtimes. That's what he tells himself when he finds himself library-bound between lessons, filling in blanks on sheets and flipping through books in the library, occasionally signing onto a computer for research. It leaves more time for yoga at home, when he's not too tired. 

The boys in his class call him a fag at the same time the girls say they want 'a gay best friend' and all the imaginary flair it contains. Levi thinks sexuality it's a definable personality trait. The girls in his half year thinks he's weird, the ones that matter, anyway. He gets on fine with the quieter ones, the ones involved in their own separate cliches but appear elite in their own right. And soon enough, boys and girls are mixing again, and Levi has always been intimidated by his own gender, too scared to even attempt socialisation. 

Boys are crass, he heard mothers at yoga discussing, they are dirty and yell too much and run around the whole house. Levi's mother would smile down at him, then, and not pitch in about what a wonder he was. What a well behaved star. Other mothers do no such courtesy, and the ginger girl is pushed forward and told to greet everyone so politely, so painfully, and a barbie doll sticks from her backpacks as she leaves. 

Levi is careful to never let himself step out of line, so not have himself talked about like some wild animal escaped from a zoo. He wants praise, like the girl at yoga gets, wants to be told how well he's doing, how good he is behaving. His mother only ever smiles, and his first full marks in school is something which can only be compared to bliss, though pales in comparison to the first time he completed the summer salutation, to the store bought congratulations Mrs. Haden had offered him.

He'll win her real respect. He will.

###### 

Children are cruel. They fundamentally misunderstand morals and take on the less savoury lessons in life first and foremost, as they are the most taboo and never has a child seen a secret and not wanted it for themselves. Levi wish kindness was swept behind doors and whispered under people's breathes, rather than the hatred that seeps like an all consuming, sickening tar from keyholes and the mouths of his peers. It weighs him down, hard and heavy and suffocating in his lungs - there's not a stretch in the world that could ache the pain away.

At the age of thirteen, a girl in his year kills herself. It's hush-hush, that black tar, and there's no official announcement as to why. Levi wishes he could claim some remembrance to her, but her name rings a bell only in empty houses. People cry like they knew her, and he would have felt some great guilt if he did not know that they didn't know her, either. It's all a show, for show. The best outfits, the greatest cry, the biggest lie.

It's only a week later when a boy two years his senior sneers at him to kill himself. Levi remembers him from the girls funeral.

He can't help but wonder after her. What could be so bad she endeavoured to end her life? To escape forever? To sink from 6ft under to an endless abyss of pure nothing? The thoughts fill his head, spilling into the receding equilibrium of the burn of yoga, of pushing himself. She slit her wrists, uncaring of originality (what could possibly be less original than death?), and she bled out in a bath tub. A dark haired girl had whispered it to her friend, whisper being a quaint word for an attempt at secrecy. Everyone had heard since then, and rumours do as rumours will.

She had ginger hair.

###### 

It's not long after he hits 15 that Levi stops attending yoga classes. Mrs. Haden's approval is a lost cause as she ages, and with the girl and her mother gone there is little real competition. Only mothers and the adventurous university-goer. Levi had heard mentions of a more serious yoga club, one that challenges it's attendants, at the local sport centre, but work flocks like birds to a prey to him, and in between appearing scars and grades, Levi has no time for flexibility. 

He desperately dreams after that calm again, the ache, but all he has is five minutes before sleep to scratch at his wrist, so nick his thighs with a blade and wait out the endorphin rush, before he passes out and the day begins anew. He crouches to pick up dropped pens, and his mother never questions after his stretches, his ceased attendance.

She doesn't comment on a lot, anymore.

The kids at school never seem to stop, though. It's not an issue, Levi swears, he can't even remember the exact insults, not really, they're just a vague rush of bad. Bad, bad, bad, work and bleed and bed. Flashes of red hair beneath his eyelids and dark shadows under his mothers baby blues in the morning, cans piled next to the bin and glass bottles laid to rest in a dusty wine rack. There's a few people who are indifferent to him, girls, mostly, and he speaks little and shares less.

He doesn't want to be anybodies fantasy, the mysterious character in a book who opens up to only one person. He is for no one but himself. Self involved and lofty, and it's an absolutely tragedy in the way there are none in his life. Without any real pain, without suffering and hurt and with a home, an education, and food on the table. Or, well. Metaphorically. As most things are.

###### 

His mother isn't alcoholic, and his father is still here.

It's the little lies that get him through the day. It's how they aren't laughing at him, and how they are definitely cat scratches, and how he spills water on his pillow. Everynight. He's okay, too, just getting on with life and all its little challenges, maintaining grades and the cleanness of the knife he stole from the design block two years ago. It's made for cutting cardboard, but he's sure it won't mind the change in scenery. Workers get reassigned every day, and unemployment rises. The world he is to adopt is a hopeful one.

His head aches horribly.

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](http://levists.tumblr.com)


End file.
